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Drug experts support injecting centre

The decision to end the nine-year "trial" of Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) and make it a permanent part of the NSW health system should be applauded, say doctors and public health advocates.

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) said the Kings Cross-based facility, unique in Australia, had proven itself as a model for reducing the community-wide impact of drugs while preventing overdose deaths among users.

"Since the establishment of the MSIC, ambulance call-outs to drug overdoses has fallen by 80 per cent in the Kings Cross area, a significant achievement," said Dr Alex Wodak, chair of the Policy and Advocacy Committee for Addiction Medicine at the RACP.

"It is high time that the charade of the temporary research status of the MSIC was ended."

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Dr Wodak said the facility, which opened amid controversy in May 2001, had handled about 3,500 drug over-doses without recording a fatality and now oversaw about 200 injections a day.

It also allowed some of Australia's "most severely marginalised injecting drug users" to be referred for additional health or social welfare services on 7,000 occasions.

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally on Wednesday announced she would introduce legislation to end the trial status, though the MSIC would remain the only legalised injecting centre in NSW.

Ms Keneally said the centre had helped more than 12,000 drug users and distributed more than 300,000 clean needles and syringes.

"It has saved lives, it has reduced disease risk, it has reduced the incidence of public injecting, and quite frankly, it has brought people who live on the margins, who live on the edge, into contact with health services and drug treatment services," Ms Keneally said.

The government's decision has the backing of The Public Health Association of Australia and the Australasian Society for HIV Medicine, which points to lower rates of needle sharing curbing the spread of blood-borne disease.

Despite fears the centre would increase crime, NSW Police Superintendent Tony Crandell said he believed crime in the Kings Cross area had gone down since the injecting centre opened.

"Policing categories of robbery and theft have either plateaued or declined, and it has certainly declined since 2006," he said.

Back-street deaths in Kings Cross from drug abuse and overdoses had also declined in the past nine years, he said.

But Drug Free Australia secretary Gary Christian has claimed the centre encourages users to take risks.

"We've spoken to ex-clients of the injecting room who said that the safety allowed them to experiment with high does of heroin ..." he told ABC Radio.

The Greens have signalled their support for the move while NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell, who has criticised the centre for not meeting key goals, said he would allow his MPs a conscience vote on legislation to make the centre permanent.

Despite the move in NSW, Victorian Premier John Brumby ruled out establishing a drug injecting centre in Melbourne saying the city had other initiatives that had reduced over-dose deaths.

"I think we're getting on top of this problem and we've got no plans to introduce safe injecting rooms," Mr Brumby told reporters on Wednesday.